Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
December 19, 2010
This report shows that Israel operates a two-tier system for the two populations of the West Bank in the large areas where it exercises exclusive control. The report is based on case studies comparing Israel’s starkly different treatment of settlements and next-door Palestinian communities in these areas. It calls on the US and EU member states and on businesses with operations in settlement areas to avoid supporting Israeli settlement policies that are inherently discriminatory and that violate international law.

The fire of hatred and racism is ablaze in Israel. Signs of loathing toward Arab citizens and African migrants are cropping up every day; examples include the municipal rabbis’ letter that called for a ban on renting or selling homes to non-Jews …

… I remember that a few meters from my home, enraged residents searched for Arab workers, and when they found one they beat him to a pulp. A gang seized a car belonging to Arab laborers and rocked it back and forth, finally tipping it over. At night, tires were burned, and people chanted “death to Arabs;” thousands of residents headed toward Jaffa, before being stopped by security forces. A sense of war hovered in the air. ….

Can Israeli racism be eliminated through law, trial and punishment, or is it already part of the Israeli identity?

… The Israeli state might be more Jewish than democratic, but being Israeli means belonging to a separate race that also happens to be Jewish; what counts is the Israeli race. …

The Israeli race defines its identity as Zionism. Within that identity, it seems, are religion, territory, nationalism and a dream. All these components, however, are the products of ideology. Religion is neither belief in God nor what is written in the Scriptures, but rather the religion defined by the State of Israel. …

The territory is neither that which was recognized by the United Nations, nor what was promised to the Jews as a national home, nor a sanctuary from anti-Semitism. Rather, it is a boundary-less sprawl that sends satellites into the land of another people and refuses to confine itself in a defined national container. …